


Take Something Innocent

by silklace



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Abuse, Canon Compliant, Dark, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Smut, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:22:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9321245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silklace/pseuds/silklace
Summary: How to make a monster: First you must take something innocent, then feed it hate, ridicule, and betrayal. All that is left is a soul poisoned by the world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The making and unmaking of the monstrous Thomas Barrow.

i. eight

He wakes in the blue black morning and lies still for a moment, listening to the quiet sounds of his brother softly huffing in his sleep and, from down the narrow corridor, the brackish scrape of his father heaping coal into the stove. He pulls his fingers from his brother’s spit-slicked grip, wiping the drool on his sleep shirt and leaning down briefly to tuck his nose into the sweet, sleep-warmed crook of his brother’s shoulder. The boy giggles in his sleep, fingers flexing to reach out for purchase again.

“Back to bed with you,” Thomas whispers, dropping a kiss on the boy’s forehead like his Ma does sometimes still to him, when he’s sick or tired or being so good.

The floor is so cold it burns, so Thomas slants his ankles and walks on the side of his feet until he finds the woolen stockings he’d kicked off sometime in the night. The corridor is dim and he can see, through the sooty lace curtains at the end of the hall, that the sky is still black and deep with night. He passes his parent’s room, hearing the first sighing, shuffling sounds of his mother pulling on her clothes, and heads towards the kitchen, where his father sits in front of the stove threading a pair of mended brown laces through his work shoes.

Thomas watches him carefully for a moment from behind the threshold, not saying a word, hardly breathing, but he starts to feel a sickness in his belly and moves forward into the room. “Hello, Da,” he says, quietly.

His father does not look at him, but says, without stopping his work, “I want you to come down to the shop today, after you’ve brought Elliot to Miss Mabel’s. I’ll need the help.”

“Yes, Da,” Thomas says. Shivering, he edges closer to the stove until he can feel its heat, like the warm breath of the hound next door who pants in his face when he finds Thomas sitting on the steps outside in the evenings. He sighs a little, just softly, but doesn’t stop shivering, his nightshirt too large and slipping down his chest. His father glances at him, takes in the boy’s thin chest and knobby knees peeking underneath from white cotton. “Go get dressed, Thomas, you’re indecent,” he says, voice pitched low.

Thomas’ face feels hot now and he nods, muttering, “Sorry, Da,” before scampering back to his room, which is still sleep stale and quiet. Pulling his clothes from his dresser, Thomas bangs the drawers open and shut, until he hears Elliot stir under the thick blankets and turns around to see him blinking sleepily. There, he thinks, unkindly.

“Morning, Thomas." Elliot grins, a toothy smile just visible above the mound of blankets.

Thomas, clothes in hand, ignores him and sits down on the edge of the bed, leaning over to light the candle on the small table next to their shared bed so he can see enough to get all the buttons on his clothes fitted properly. Elliot giggles, and Thomas turns to him, a frown pulling at his face. “What?”

“You look an angel, Thomas,” he says, still giggling, fingers in front of his mouth and cheeks blushed from sleep. “Your hair’s all…fluffy. S’like a halo with the light and all.”

“You’re daft,” Thomas says, rolling his eyes, but he abandons his clothes and crawls up onto his knees, a smile pulling across his lips. He raises his hands, fingers bent into claws and growls, “It’s the grizzly bear,” and his fingers find the soft skin on Elliot’s sides and begin to tickle, until Elliot shrieks with delight.

+++

ii. sixteen

Thomas likes the clock shop best when there are no customers. Then, his father stays in the back room taking sleek tools to the delicate insides of broken clocks, and Thomas makes himself useful in the front, wiping soft cloths over the smooth mahogany arches of the grandest clocks or balancing the numbers in the shop ledger, pen making black marked corrections against his father’s jumbled calculations. The sound of the clocks ticking is a steady beat in his head, a comforting repetition that whites out space for anything else and keeps his hands calm and his mind gratefully blank.

Today, though, the shop has had a steady stream of customers since it opened and in between answering the truly stupid questions of patrons who fail to understand any part of clock making, Thomas’ mind stutters fretfully, pacing back and forth and caged. He runs his thumbnail twitchily over a groove in the wooden counter, eyeing the mustached man in the corner considering a stately grandfather clock in case he needs assistance, and doesn’t notice his father come up behind him until it’s too late. His father’s fingers find the soft underside of his chin and curl under the bone with a pain like white heat, twisting his head back over his shoulder sharply. Thomas doesn’t make a sound, but he can’t help the tears that spring to his eyes. It’s an automatic reaction to pain, he tells himself. It’s physiology, nothing else.

“When you’ve finished damaging my property,” his father says quietly, lips barely moving as his eyes flick up to ensure the customer hasn’t taken notice, “there’s a delivery in the back.” He releases his grip and stands back. “Go.”

The delivery man is slouched against the brick wall outside the back of the shop when Thomas finds him, one chestnut curl falling across his forehead and a crumpled cigarette in his left hand. He straightens when Thomas closes the door behind him, but doesn’t bother to put out his cigarette, instead blowing a flume of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Well?” Thomas says, aiming to sound hurried and professional, but his voice cracks and he presses his lips together to stop their trembling.

The man looks at him, squinting against the glare of the sun, and says, “You look a sight, lad.”

Thomas breathes out through his nose, wishing he was a man, not a boy on the cusp of manhood, wishing he could think of the right things to say through the frazzled noise in his brain. He steps out into the sunlight and the man’s face darkens as he takes in the marks blooming across Thomas’ jaw. Thomas nods at his cigarette.“Give us a drag, then,” he says lightly.

The man passes it over, though it’s burned down mostly to a nub, and watches as Thomas raises it to his lips and takes a too-deep breath off of it, coughing as soon as the smoke hits his throat. “Careful,” the man says, smiling and taking the burned out end from Thomas’ fingers, dropping it onto the ground. “Let’s have a look at you then,” he says, not unkindly, and steers Thomas further out into the sunlight, propping him gently against the side of the storage shed, out of sight of the shop.

The back of Thomas’ neck prickles and his cheeks grow hot as the man looks at him, gaze intent and grim. Thomas averts his own eyes, muttering, “It’s not so bad,” but he hisses and startles when the man’s fingers come up to settle gently against his jaw, nudging Thomas’ head back to look all over. Thomas shivers as the man rubs his fingers carefully over his skin. His hands are rough and warm and Thomas cannot help the small moan that climbs out of his chest and escapes from his throat.

“Ah,” the man says, swallowing and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He watches the dark blush that’s settled high on Thomas’ cheeks and curls his hand around the back of Thomas' thin neck. “Does that help a bit?”

Thomas can’t bring himself to look at the man’s face, but his fingers come up to clutch at the front of his jacket and the man sighs, shifting closer. “Look at you,” he says, and Thomas’ fingers clench, his head falling back and hitting the shed.

“Oh,” he says, and pulls the man closer until they’re flush. “Oh, please,” he says softly, catching his bottom lip between his teeth and feeling like he could fly apart. He can’t stop trembling.

The man raises his other hand and places it flat on the wall beside Thomas’ head, his other hand still rubbing soothing circles over Thomas’ neck and jaw, and Thomas watches from the corner of his eye as the man leans in, slowly, as if giving him time to stop it, and places his mouth just on the corner of Thomas’ own lips. At the touch, Thomas cries out and angles their mouths together, feels the cool press of soft, slightly chapped skin. The man slides his hand up the back of Thomas’ neck to cradle his skull and Thomas opens his mouth for him, letting him press his tongue inside him, deepening the kiss. When Thomas slides his arms up the man’s shoulders and hooks his ankle around the back of his calf, the man groans, gripping Thomas’ hair in clenched fingers. He breaks off, breathing heavily and half laughing, “You’re a little minx,” he says, and kisses Thomas’s temple, laying hot open mouthed kisses down the side of his face and along the hard edge of his jaw, while Thomas whines and flexes his fingers along the man’s broad shoulders.

“Kiss me, again, please,” he whispers softly, and the man laughs and finds his mouth, kissing him tenderly at first and then deepening the kiss again as Thomas makes encouraging sounds in the back of his throat.

Thomas could not name the feeling that is sparking along his skin and settling heavy in his belly, only knows that it makes him want to get on his knees for the man, makes him want the man’s hand on the back of his neck, under his jaw, gently prodding him to look up into his eyes. It makes him want to arch his back and open himself up for the man, do things he doesn’t even have words for, just so that the man will never stop looking at him so tenderly and saying things that make Thomas’ belly twist with something that feels like vanity and shame all at once. He wonders what he should do next, to make the man groan like that again, but his wondering is cut short when the man is suddenly ripped from his grasp.

He stumbles and catches himself against the shed, hands reaching out again before he realizes what’s happening. The man is breathing hard, but suddenly all Thomas can hear is his own pulse pounding in his ears. His father is staring at him, his mouth white, eyes unnaturally big. “No,” Thomas hears himself choke, terror clogging his brain and making his tongue thick.

His father turns to the man. “Leave. Now.” He doesn’t bother to wait to see if he’s left before he’s turning back to Thomas. He is quiet and still for a moment, eyes not leaving Thomas’ face, and then he raises his arm and backhands Thomas across the face.

“Jesus -- ! Don’t – don’t hit him,” the man shouts, stepping forward in between Thomas and his father, face ashen. “Stop – stop banging him around, for god's sake! You’re hurting him.”

Thomas wishes suddenly he were back in the front of the shop, with the ticking of the clocks. He can taste blood in his mouth.

His father’s head tilts to the side as he rounds back on the man. “I think you will find that your presence is no longer required here. You would do well to consider that I have just witnessed you assaulting my only son, and I’m sure the police would be very interested in hearing my account of your disgusting --,” suddenly he spits, hectic spots of color rising in his cheeks, “your foul, deviant behavior.”

The man blanches, shaking his head, and tries to catch Thomas’ eye but Thomas doesn’t let him, just wants him to leave so that his father can get on with his punishment and it can be over, done with, and Thomas can go and listen to the blessed, relenting ticking of the clocks.

He hears the man finally turn and leave, steps echoing off the brick walls. Thomas swallows, feels the tightness in his throat and hotness behind his eyes for the second time that day. “Father -,”

“I understand, now.” His father says, one hand coming to shakily press against his mouth for a brief moment before he straightens and both arms come to rest against his sides. “It’s because of you, that Elliot and Mother were taken from us. We were punished because of your sins against God.”

“No, father, please --,”

“Stop. I had wondered…why and now -- it is clear to me, now, that you are the reason they're dead. You've killed them.”

“No, I --, ”

“God saw your twisted nature and hurled upon us His divine retribution. And now they’re dead.” He heaves a horrible breath. “Oh, Lord forgive me, I wish it had been you, instead.”

Thomas’ head feels dizzy, and his breath is starting to come funny, like he’s gasping. His spine bows at the same time that his knees crumple and he finds himself on the ground. He can’t stop the horrible sounds coming from his body, like a wretch crawling up the back of his throat. He wants Elliot here, and he wants to tell his father that he wishes it had been him instead, too, that he would gladly switch places with Elliot than have to walk this black earth without him, but he cannot seem to shape the words out of the sobs wracking through his chest and contorting his spine.

He lays in the dirt for a long time, long enough that his father has retreated back to the shop, and then, later still, locked the shop doors and made the walk home, and the moon is a low, light crescent shape against the dusky blue sky.

Thomas pulls himself off the ground, fingers numb with cold. He runs a shaky hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. He plucks at his wrinkled, dirt-stained clothes, tongues the ragged split in his lip. It doesn’t feel right to be out in public in this state, and he takes an unsteady step, unsure what to do, but then he straightens his spine and raises his head, and he finds the moon in the sky and resolves never to let another man put him in the dirt.

When his father wakes the next morning, Thomas’ bed is undisturbed and his wardrobe emptied. There is a note on the table, with one word scrawled in Thomas’ hand, “Deliverance.”

+++

iii. twenty-one

“How…charming,” the Duke says, glancing around with eager derision at Thomas’ cramped bedroom in the servant quarters of the London house. Thomas rolls his eyes, lighting a cigarette and leaning back on the knobby headboard of his small cot. The other cot is unmade, the thin mattress roll and blanket folded neatly at the foot of the empty bed, and the only other furniture is a small wardrobe and desk in the corner and a low stool that Thomas has pulled next to the cot he occupies. He flicks his cigarette in the direction of the ash tray that sits atop it. “You could have sent for me,” he says lazily, one eyebrow notching up.

“Oh, but that wouldn’t have been as fun, not as fun at all.” The Duke hesitates, his hands fiddling with the knot on his dressing robe. “Can I look around?” he asks, curiosity making his features childish and, Thomas thinks suddenly, unattractive.

Thomas waves his hand, smoke drifting after it lazily. “The world is your oyster,” he says, taking a long drag off his cigarette. He’s bored by the Duke’s inanity and wishes he had never acquiesced to his giggling pleas to sneak him back here in the first place.

He stands, stubbing out his cigarette, and begins to remove his clothes, hanging each item in the wardrobe immediately so that nothing wrinkles. He’s just pulled off his undershirt when the Duke laughs abruptly and holds up a small silver frame with the faded picture of a little boy. Elliot. “Who’s this?”

Thomas snatches the frame from the Duke’s hands. “Don’t touch that,” he says, voice harsh, putting the frame back where it was and closing the desk drawer. He takes a breath and then smiles, cocking his head a little. “Besides, you didn’t really come here to rifle through a footman’s sad belongings, did you?” He tugs the Duke’s robe open and runs his hand in a line from the dip in his throat down to the waistband of his pajamas. The Duke giggles, a little breathless, and allows Thomas to steer him back towards the bed, where he sinks back on his hands, knees falling wide. Thomas almost rolls his eyes again at his predictability, but stops himself and instead runs his tongue along his bottom lip, watching the Duke track the movement. He puts his hand on the Duke’s thigh and drops to his knees.

“Oh, you do take care of me, don’t you, Thomas?” The Duke moans as Thomas tugs his knees further apart and sets his mouth, carefully, on the bulge between the Duke’s legs. He lets Thomas lip at him through the cloth before catching him by his hair and pulling him back. “Take them off,” he orders.

Thomas lowers his eyes and then looks up through his lashes. “Of course, your grace.” He runs his hands up from the Duke’s thighs to his hips, curling his fingers around the waistband of his bottoms and tugging them down slowly, watching as his cock, hard and pink, smacks quietly against his stomach. Thomas licks his lips again, this time with genuine interest, and when he leans forward again to close his mouth over the head of the Duke’s cock, he moans.

He runs his tongue around the head, getting him wet and enjoying the slick feel of a cockhead against his lips, and then, without teasing, lowers his mouth down along the hard length of him until he can feel the press of flesh against the back of his throat. Above him, he hears the Duke mutter, “God,” and flex his hips forward. Thomas chokes a little, but then grips the Duke’s hips and holds him in place, bobbing his head up and down until his jaw aches. Eventually, the Duke whines and grasps the back of his head again, holding Thomas open against him as he finishes down his throat.

Thomas pulls off when the Duke releases him, breathing hard and flexing his jaw a bit. There is a high flush from the Duke’s chest to the top of his head and he reaches out for Thomas, sliding his hand along his jaw and cheek to cup the back of his head. “Lord, you’re wonderful at that.” Thomas feels lust coil in his belly, and he kisses the thin skin of the Duke’s wrist and presses his palm against the bulge in his own pants. “Oh, don’t, darling,” the Duke says, pulling Thomas to his feet and replacing Thomas’ hand with his own. “You know what else I want.”

Thomas smirks, feeling triumphant. He flips open the buttons on his trousers, watching as the Duke shrugs out of his robe and turns over onto his knees, pushing his bottom back and out for Thomas to see. “Cheeky,” Thomas says, and the Duke laughs and drops down to his elbows, looking back over his shoulder with dark eyes.

Thomas fucks him, staring at the wide, empty wall across from him, and thinks that maybe it’s not that men like him aren’t allowed to fall in love, but that they don’t have the ability for it, instead.

+++

iv. twenty-six

He makes a miscalculation. It had been a rare night off from Downton Hospital, as he liked to call it when he was out of Mr. Carson’s earshot, and the pub in Thirsk was loud and full of chatter and it had calmed the frenetic pacing in his head for a moment, and then the liquor had killed it entirely, until his mind was bare and blank and white. He had smiled at the man, but that was all, and had not noticed him following him when he’d left the pub on unsteady feet.

The alley’s brick wall was rough but cool against his cheek, and he could taste iron on his tongue and acid in his throat. He had said, “No,” when the man had bit out, “You’re a bit delicate, aren’t you?” and “No,” yet again, louder and higher, when the man had pressed him against the wall, using his larger weight to hold him there as he opened his suit. He had said, “Please, no, please,” when he’d felt the man push his own trousers down, and then he had stopped talking, and mostly tried to stop thinking. When it was over, he thought, horribly, of Elliot’s face, and his small voice calling him an angel, and he had vomited, and wished that he could be someone else.

He doesn’t know how he makes it back to Downton Abbey. He is there in the alley, smelling of vomit and blood, and then he looks up and finds himself in the courtyard leading to the kitchen, the moon bright and yellow above him. It hurts to feel the moon’s glow on him, he thinks wildly, and steps gratefully into the shadows of the quiet kitchen.

Sybil, hair hidden under her ever present nurse’s habit, looks up at him from where she’s sitting next to a cup of steaming tea. She jumps guiltily at him finding her there. “Thomas,” she says, and then, as he comes into the light, “Oh, Thomas, what’s happened?”

“M’lady,” he says, and then forgets what he is supposed to say next.

Sybil’s eyes are wide. “Oh, gracious, come here and let me see you.” She runs a clean rag under the tap and approaches him. When he flinches back, she swallows. “Thomas, may I please help?”

He takes a ragged breath and nods. She hesitates and then says, “Can you sit?”

Thomas finally looks at her. He feels a horrible sound begin to form in his belly, a sound like a wail, or a scream, and he presses his lips together so as not let it out. He shakes his head, instead.

Sybil closes her eyes for a moment, and then, voice cracking, she reaches for him once more, holding out her arm until he finally takes it. “Right, I’m going to draw you a bath, and you don’t have to talk, only if you want to.”

It’s absurd in its inappropriateness, but Sybil deflects his protests, turning away when he removes his clothes and bringing him a large cloth to cover himself with while she carefully washes his hair, sweeping soft fingers against his forehead and kindly ignoring the steady stream of tears on his face.

When he’s dressed in soft pajamas and a robe, she bends to pick up the pile of his dirty clothes. “Oh, please don’t, m’lady,” he says, shame making his face wooden. He can smell the blood on them.

“Please trust me, Thomas,” she says, and she takes him back down to the kitchens and stands with him in front of the fire.

She took off the scarf at some point, Thomas realizes, and her hair is wild around her strong-jawed face. The light from the flames casts strange, flickering shadows over her, and she, suddenly, seems great and terrible to Thomas. She presses the clothes into his hands, her voice low and no longer shaking, her eyes knowing and known. “Burn them.”

Years later, when she dies, Thomas weeps.

+++

v. thirty-two

“We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Thomas closes his eyes, breathing hard through his nose. “Jimmy. You’re blotto. Don’t give Mr. Carson any more reason to throw you out.”

Jimmy laughs, but there’s no humor in it, and he moves his palm away from Thomas’s thigh, leaning back on his hands on the small cot, head lolling drunkenly. Thomas catches him by the back of his skull and helps him sit forward. “Don’t, you’ll make yourself all dizzy.”

Jimmy’s eyes slide shut and his mouth goes slack for a moment but then he rouses again and looks at Thomas with intent. “You love me, though.”

Thomas says nothing and instead chooses to slide off the bed to kneel at Jimmy’s feet. He takes one of Jimmy’s dirty shoes in hand and starts to untie the laces. “You said you loved me.”

Thomas stills for a moment and then – “I did. I do.” His voice is low. It still surprises him. He thought he was incapable of love, born wrong, a thing cursed.

A hand trips along his cheek and jaw clumsily, and he stills. “I want to know why.”

“’Course you do,” Thomas says, mostly to himself, pulling off Jimmy’s other shoe and curling his hand around the arch of his socked foot. Jimmy sighs, eyes drowsy.

“Mr. Barrow. Thomas. No one loves me – I don’t think, not even my parents.” He bites his lip, eyes casting away briefly. “But you do. You said it once, like you were commenting on the weather, easy-like. But I’m not easy to love. Tell me why, please, I just – I need to know.”

“You’re lovely. To look at, I mean.” Thomas says it abruptly, half hoping to scare him away and put an end to this talk, but Jimmy only smiles, the corner of his mouth pulling up into something coy. Thomas pushes on. “That first time, when I saw you, trying on your new livery, your chest bared – I thought of putting my mouth on you.”

Jimmy’s breath hitches. “Oh,” he says.

Thomas swipes his thumb up underneath the cuff of Jimmy’s trousers and slides it gently along his ankle bone.

“Go on,” Jimmy says, a little breathless. “Or is that all?” he asks carefully, not looking at Thomas.

“No, that’s not all,” Thomas says, sweeping his thumb one last time over his delicate ankle. “I like the way you talk, and that you know the piano, and how stupid you can be with Alfred. I like your anger, the chip on your shoulder.” He hesitates, drawing in a breath, eyes flicking around the room, anywhere but Jimmy’s face, which is open and hungry. “You make me laugh, and feel less alone. I feel a kind of…kindred sense with you.”

“Yes,” Jimmy says.

“I’m glad to know you. It makes me glad…to love you, even if you don’t feel the same towards me.”

Jimmy’s eyes search his face. “I wasn’t lying,” he says, “when I told you I can never give you what you want.”

“I know that,” Thomas says, words an echo of their conversation from nearly two years prior.

“But I like - that you love me.”

Thomas nods and, surprised, feels his mouth pull into a smile. He helps Jimmy into his pajamas and then into bed, and Jimmy is quiet throughout as if he is thinking. When Thomas is at the door, he says softly, “I had a dream.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. We were in a room, filled with all sorts of clocks. It was just you and me. And you told me to wait, “Just wait,” you said, and so we did, and you were looking at me, the way you sometimes do, and then the clocks struck the hour and they all went off at once, and it was loud and grand and – beautiful.” Jimmy’s eyes are closed.

Thomas’ mouth twitches. “And when I waked, I cried to dream again,” he says softly, and watches Jimmy sleep for a moment, and then he turns and leaves, and closes the door behind him.

+++

vi. thirty-seven

The train hums with the low chatter of tired, well-fed travelers returning home after a pleasant day, and Thomas rests his head back against his seat. He flexes his knee, wondering if it means he’s getting old that it aches now after a game of cricket, and watches as his train pulls into the station, which is mostly empty at this late hour.

The moon is high and full in the sky above him and he is grateful for its glow as he threads his way home through the dusty paths of the village. When he sees a figure, crouched against the brick wall of the lane, he feels, at first, an aching tiredness that nearly stop him in his tracks. Some days despair still comes to sit with him like an old friend, making his hours woolen and foggy, his head racketing with too much noise. He hears a quiet sob from the figure and pushes past the exhaustion.

In the light from a lamp, he sees that the figure is a young man, curled up on the ground with his hand covering his face. His shoulders are shaking. Thomas moves forward and kneels next to him, and the man looks up, eyes wide and wet. There’s a shallow gash on his forehead still bright with blood.

“What’s happened?” Thomas asks, fishing in his pockets for a clean handkerchief.

“I – I don’t really know,” the man says, though Thomas cannot tell if he’s still a boy, in fact. He rubs at his tears angrily. “There was a group of men, they attacked me. Took everything I had on me – only it’s my first night here and I don’t even know where I’m supposed to be going, not without the directions I had written down on a slip of paper.

He takes the proffered handkerchief, frowning angrily. “I’ve no right to tears, though.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Thomas says gently. He reaches out his hand. “I’m Mr. Barrow – Thomas Barrow.”

“Oliver. Oliver Kinley.”

“How’s your head?”

“I’ll manage.”

“I’m sure you will. Can you remember anything about who you might be meeting or what house you were headed to? I’ve lived in this town nearly my whole life, I should be able to set you right.”

“I’m supposed to be starting as a new instructor at the school,” Oliver says, hitching a sigh. “I had been corresponding with a Mr. Alfred Molesley.”

Thomas stands and helps Oliver to his feet. “You’re in the right hands, then.”

+++ 

vii. forty

“Hullo, Thomas.”

Thomas stops at the gate of his cottage. Oliver is sitting on the front steps, smiling at him and squinting against the low edge of the summer sun dropping against the horizon.

“I hope you’ve not been waiting long,” Thomas says, hearing the latch of the gate click shut behind him.

“Not too long, no.” Thomas stops in front of him, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth, standing close enough that he can see the smattering of sun freckles along Oliver’s nose.

“Come inside?”

Oliver laughs. “That was the plan.”

Inside, the drawing room is cool and shaded against the sun, the curtains pulled closed. Thomas shuts the door, dropping his keys on a side table, and then pauses. “Have you eaten?”

Oliver nods. “Yes, Mr. Barrow.” He is still smiling, his mouth quirking up pleasantly to one side. He edges around behind Thomas and puts his hands on his shoulders, smoothing them down over the lapels of Thomas’ jacket. Thomas sighs, eyes catching Oliver’s gaze out of the corner of his vision. “Here, let me help you with this,” Oliver says quietly, and pulls the jacket backwards over Thomas’ shoulders.

He drops the jacket over the back of a chair, and then his hands settle again on Thomas’ shoulders and he begins to knead at the tight muscles. Thomas' fingers jump and he pulls away. “Would you like a drink?”

Oliver’s smile fades, but he reaches out. “Thomas, my love, should we do this every time?”

Thomas looks at him unhappily. “It’s still…new,” he says, voice low. “I don’t want to presume.”

Oliver’s fingers slide up the back of Thomas’ neck and he runs his hands back and forth over his skull, until Thomas’ neatly pomaded hair is mussed and soft, and his eyes have closed in enjoyment at the touch. “I want you to presume, Thomas,” he says, and leans in and kisses him, gently. Thomas presses his lips back against his, but when Oliver slides his tongue along Thomas’ bottom lip, Thomas pulls away again, though his hands are clutching Oliver’s hips.

“Tell me,” Thomas says, voice still low but huskier. “Tell me what you want me to presume.”

“Take off my clothes,” Oliver says, voice shaky but eyes bright, and Thomas pulls his braces down over his shoulders, pushing the collar of his white shirt aside, and with a small noise, leaning forward to place open mouthed kisses along the bared skin. Oliver gasps at the touch, fingers fumbling to undo the buttons on Thomas’ shirt.

When they’re both nearly naked, Oliver pushes Thomas back onto the loveseat and drops to his knees in front of him. “I thought about this all day,” he says, eyes wide, his hair falling across his forehead. Thomas reaches out and cups his face, feeling something painful and hungry tug low in his belly when Oliver closes his eyes and rubs his cheek against his scarred hand. His erection is painfully obvious through the thin cotton of his shorts, but he ignores it, watching Oliver instead.

But Oliver sits back on his heels. “I want to hear you say it.”

“But – why?”

Oliver frowns for a moment and then leans up, nuzzling his cheek against Thomas’ and kissing his ear. “Because I like when you – tell me what to do.” He pulls back, eyes dark and face flushed but looking determined.

Thomas swallows, heat rising in his own cheeks. “I want --,” he stops, breathing hard through his nose. “Open your mouth for me, love,” he says, instead, and watches a shiver uncurl along Oliver’s back.

Oliver parts his lips, moaning a little when Thomas takes his chin carefully in hand and widens the gap. He briefly dips his thumb into Oliver’s mouth, and Oliver swipes his tongue along the pad of his finger, eyes not leaving Thomas’ face.

Thomas, breathing heavily, pushes his pants down and takes his erection in hand, moving forward until he’s seated on the edge of the sofa. He still has Oliver’s mouth held open in one hand, and he rubs his wet thumb across Oliver’s bottom lip until its shiny and pink. “Go on, sweetheart,” he says, and guides Oliver’s mouth down to slide over his cock, stomach jumping at the first touch of warm, wet lips moving over the head of his penis.

Oliver’s hands are trembling, and at first he places them on Thomas’ thighs, but then Thomas touches the back of Oliver’s head and flexes his hips up at the same time and Oliver moans, hands flying up again. Thomas catches them and then says, imaginatively, “Put them behind your back.” Oliver pulls off his cock, gasping, and does so, saying, “Oh, oh,” and rubbing his cheek against the long line of Thomas’ erection. When his hands are folded behind his back, he looks back up at Thomas with wide-blown, searching eyes and says, “Please, put it in my mouth.”

Thomas grips himself in hand again and nudges his cock through the circle of Oliver’s lips, flexing his hips so that the head of his cock drags back and forth against Oliver’s open mouth. The sight is too much, so much, and he closes his eyes, running his fingers back through Oliver’s hair with his free hand. “You’re so good, so wet and sweet for me.”

Oliver pulls back again. “Oh, god, Thomas, I need you to touch me, please,” he begs, and Thomas surges forward, kissing him hotly against the mouth and gripping him underneath the arms to help pull him into his lap, Oliver’s knees going wide around Thomas’ thighs.

Thomas hisses when their erections rub against each other, and he runs his hands over Oliver’s chest, along his flat abdomen, and down to tug at his hard prick, wet at the tip. Thomas spreads the wetness around with his thumb, watching Oliver’s face, twisted in pleasure and desire.

Oliver grasps Thomas’ other hand and slides it around from his hip to his arse, and Thomas, taking the hint, rubs and gropes at his bottom, pulling so that if Thomas were standing behind him, he would see the pink whorl of Oliver’s hole between his cheeks. “Oh, oh,” Oliver says again, and then he leans forward again to kiss Thomas’ jaw and to tell him, “Thomas, please, I want more, I want you to sod me.”

Thomas moans, but his hands still their movement, and his pulse, already high and pounding, quickens. “We don’t – you don’t have to do that, Oliver. Or, you can do it to me, I don’t mind.”

Oliver puts his hands in Thomas’ hair, and begins to scrape his nails gently along Thomas’ scalp. “I know some men don’t do that with each other, but – I like it. I want to be under you, in that way. I like it Thomas, I want you to do it to me,” he finishes, rather breathlessly, his hips beginning to move and flex again. “Yes,” he says, when Thomas’ fingers brush along the furrowed skin of his hole. “Oh, yes, please.”

“Alright,” Thomas says, leaning forward to press a kiss to Oliver’s chest, right over his heart. “We need –,”

“Right,” Oliver breathes. “Don’t – don’t go anywhere.” He pulls himself to his feet and heads towards the bedroom, but Thomas follows him after a moment, and they collide on the threshold of his room. Thomas’ hands find Oliver’s hips and he pulls him close. “I think – a bed, yes?” Thomas says.

Oliver doesn’t reply, but instead leans up to kiss him and places the jar of petrol jelly in his hand. Then he crosses to the bed and crawls up onto it, belly down, propping his hips up and back for Thomas’ view.

Thomas has a flicker of fear that he’s too old for this, but he pushes it away and steps up next to the edge of the bed. He slides his hand from the crease of Oliver’s thighs, up over his buttocks and along the arch of his back. Oliver moans and rolls his hips so that his arse flexes up invitingly.

Thomas bites his lips. “You’re going to do me in.”

Oliver smiles wickedly, and Thomas feels himself smirking, too. He grips Oliver’s hip and pushes him over. “But I want you on your back,” he says, and climbs up to kneel between his legs.

Oliver says, “Yes,” and pulls his legs up and open for Thomas, and Thomas, unable to help himself, leans down and slides his tongue in a line from Oliver’s arse to the tip of his cock, pulling the head into his mouth for a moment and suckling gently. “Oh, oh,” Oliver moans, and Thomas kisses his stomach, saying, “I love when you make that sound.”

“Put your fingers in me, please.”

“Tell me – don’t stop talking.” Thomas opens the lid of the petroleum and smears a liberal amount on his fingers. “Go on, love,” he says.

“Oh, well,” he stops as Thomas rubs his slicked fingers against his hole, massaging the sensitive skin there gently, but then swallows and says, “Sometimes, when I’m – thinking of you, in bed like, I put my fingers inside of myself and imagine it’s you.” Thomas watches his finger disappear inside of Oliver. “Sometimes you do it quite quickly, as if you mean to bugger me with just your fingers and,” he swallows hectically again, as Thomas adds a second finger, “- and I imagine that you want my mouth, too, at the same time.”

“God, yes,” Thomas groans, adjusting his position so that he can lean forward and kiss Oliver with his fingers still working in and out of his hole. “You like this.”

“Yes,” Oliver says, voice shaky. He pushes his hips up with the rhythm of Thomas’ hand, “Oh god,” he whispers, and Thomas is so hard it nearly hurts.

“Can I -,” he kisses Oliver desperately. “I want you,” he says simply.

Oliver nods, moaning softly at the feeling of Thomas’ fingers pulling out.

Thomas kneels back between Oliver’s legs and grips himself, rubbing his cock against Oliver’s bottom for a moment before centering the tip of his cock at Oliver’s hole and easing forward. Oliver tenses, briefly, but by the time Thomas has pushed in all the way, he’s hooked one leg around the back of Thomas and is kissing him hungrily. “I want it,” he says, and Thomas lets his hips move in and out freely, feeling Oliver’s hard cock trapped between their bellies.

“You’re lovely,” he tells Oliver, cupping his face in one hand, thumb sliding over his chin as his cock slides back and forth over the edge of his hole, mirroring the way he had used his mouth earlier. “You’re the loveliest,” he says, and he leans back on his knees so that he can pull Oliver’s cock in time to his thrusts, watching his cock slip in and out of Oliver’s arse.

He doesn’t speed up until Oliver gasps and says he’s close, and then he quickens his thrusts and the rhythm of his hand. "Don't stop," Oliver bites out, thighs tensing and hips working himself back on Thomas' cock. Thomas shifts a little, so that Oliver's body is raised just slightly off the bed, and Oliver slams his hand down, breath catching in his throat and mouth falling open. At the sight of Oliver’s come spattering wetly against his belly, Thomas buries his face in Oliver’s shoulder, hips pistoning, and comes with a low, guttural moan.

After Thomas brings him a warm, wet flannel and wipes them both down, Oliver falls asleep. Thomas watches him, admiring the way the moon light falls across his sharp cheekbones, and then quietly gets up and pads into his kitchen. He makes a cup of tea and sits at his table, tugging the curtains open so he can look up and see the stars and the moon. He sits for a time and is only startled out of it when he hears Oliver say, quietly from the threshold, “Oh.”

Thomas looks over at him, his masculine, naked body and his sharp, clever face. “I didn’t wish to wake you.”

“Thank you, I see that. I only --,” he hesitates, a smile tugging its way onto his lips, and his arms coming up self-consciously to hug his chest. “Sorry, the way the moonlight was falling on your face – you looked almost like an angel, limned in silver light.” He laughs nervously. “I know that’s silly, sorry, sometimes I get a bit soppy after – that.”

Thomas holds out his hand and Oliver takes it, letting Thomas curl him close and press a kiss to his hip bone. “You are my blessing,” he says, quietly and Oliver touches his head like a benediction, and Thomas closes his eyes, his mind quieted at last.

**Author's Note:**

> The blue-black morning and much of the inspiration for the tone of part I is taken from Robert Hayden’s poem, Those Winter Sundays. 
> 
> Thomas’ last words in part V are from The Tempest. In Act 3, Scene 2, Caliban says, “…that when I waked / I cried to dream again.”
> 
> Finally, Jimmy’s dream is inspired by the dream sequence in Cloud Atlas, when Frobisher and Sixsmith are smashing porcelain in a china shop. I think it is one of the best metaphors for erotic love in the whole goddamned world. You can view that scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y617Kdd8ys. It is NSFW. 
> 
> Feedback and/or constructive criticism is welcomed and adored. <3 Thank you for reading!


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